Commissioned by Richard Childress and His Majesty's Men, this piece brings out the mystery of a pilgrim seeking perfect union with God while at the same time feeling the dry uninspired burdens of life's crosses.  It ends with the response, "I will seek him whom my soul loves," leaving both listener and performer with the consolation of perseverance and hope.
 
Premiere: August 3, 2024  |  St. John Cantius Church  |  CHICAGO, IL
His Majesty's Men Aristict Director:  Richard Childress
My sincerest thanks to Richard Childress (countertenor), Matthew Dean (tenor), Joe Labozetta (baritone), Nathaniel Adams (baritone), and Ian Prichard (bass) for their careful attention to making this piece come to life.
 
Thanks, too, to Hudson Fair at Atelier HudSonic LLC (Classical Recording Specialists) www.hudsonic.net and Aaron at www.AtlasArts.Media for the recording!
 
PROGRAM NOTES
The Song of Songs has long been read as a dialogue and love poem between a shepherd, who represents Christ, and a shepherdess, who is typically seen as the Church or the the Blessed Virgin Mary, the queen mother of the Church.  When I set Surgam et circuibo civitatem to music I certainly had this allegorical interpretation in mind, but wanted to set it from the perspective of one who is doing the seeking, one who has yet to find that perfect unity.  
 
The rising “surgam” at the beginning of the short work is an allusion to the rising of the sun, just as Our Lady is represented to do in Revelations.  The piece then transitions into a subdued freneticism representing the soul that seeks perfect unity with its lover (God) in the byways and plazas of the city, but who does not find him there.  After this “seeking” reaches its fevered peak on the final “plateas” the tonalities turn to a resigned consonance with the use of foreign tonal colors; dissonances which imply that our love for God and ways of seeking him are often found to be dry, uninspired, and never without the carrying of the cross.  This perplexing conclusion to the verse, quesivi illum et non inveni (I sought him, but found him not), for me is an allusion to what mystics such as St. John of the Cross, called “the dark night of the soul.”  The ending unresolved cadence on “inveni” is meant to represent this mystery that says the closer we approach unity (heaven) the closer we are to life’s acute sufferings (the cross).  
 
Not to be left without hope, I chose to set a response of an earlier sung text, quaeram quem diligit anima mea, (I will seek him whom my soul loves) but here, similar material from the opening surgam is employed, a nod to a pilgrim’s perseverance and a consolation of encouragement to the soul who is heavy-laden and in need of rising once again to seek the one whom she loves.